Frijole Flats
designed and written by Thomas Yorke
The little town of Frijole Flats is located somewhere in the great Southwestern United States. Francisco Pepito Tuxpan, who came to America with his family in 1898, first settled the area. Soon after his arrival he planted his first bean which he brought with him. It was not long before a whole crop of these special beans were growing on his land. As usually happens after one person's good fortune, others followed. Soon a town grew up around the bean fields. Frijole Flats was on the map, or so it seemed.
At harvest time there arose such a smell in the fields. All the workers knew it was time to pick, but nobody wanted to go out there! Many workers claimed they could actually hear the beans. Nevertheless, they had to go out because the beans needed to be harvested, and quickly. After the initial apprehension the harvest continued without additional problems.
At first the beans were canned, but this proved to not be a good idea. Many cans simply exploded before they could be shipped out. The local rail line refused to carry the cargo after losing the roofs of several boxcars. Pepito decided that bagging dry beans was a better, and much safer, option. This seemed to work fine. When the product was re-hydrated in homes around the country; well, that is another story. They are safe as long as they are not kept in airtight containers!
The idea behind Frijole Flats and the product known as Pepito's Pintos grew out of a desire to represent color and character in a model railroad. The South of the Border inspired buildings of Frijole Flats are to be very colorful and give a bright, cheery atmosphere to a somewhat barren and dusty landscape just across the border with Mexico.
The town was built with mostly adobe buildings. There will be two volumes in the series chronicling the town and industry. Pepito's first factory was a small adobe building that he added to later in its life with a frame section, thus expanding the storage area. The only other original structure on the property is the Hacienda located not far from the initial factory. As the business and factory grew, additional structures were added and the Hacienda became the plant office. Pepito has acquired enough money due to his hard work and the great success of his business to build a nice, new Hacienda up on a little rise overlooking his plant.
